Life on the Veg: Dolsot Bibimbap at Kaju Tofu in Garden Grove

What better way to deal with this freakishly cold SoCal weather than by counter-attacking with some tongue-singeing Korean food? Dolsot (aka or stone pot) bibimbap is a wonderful way to keep your belly warm during T-shirt unfriendly weather and Kaju Tofu in Garden Grove does it right. With sauteed vegetables and juicy mushrooms piled over a slightly crisped bed of rice, this dish is filling, nutritious, and delicious (so long as you don't burn your taste buds off with the first bite).

Kaju offers dolsot bibimbap with add-in options of beef, egg, or both.
Without the beef you have a lovely ovo-vegetarian meal and just
subtract the egg to make the dish vegan-friendly. The colorful toppings
consist of sauteed vegetables including julienned carrots, fiddlehead
fern (gosari), shitake mushrooms, bean sprouts, spinach, Korean radish (mu), and strips of dried seaweed (kim). Season the dish to taste with hot pepper paste (gochujang) and stir everything together to create a mixture of savory bliss.

The
second best part about ordering the dolsot bibimbap is the crunchy rice
you get towards the bottom which is created by the extreme temperatures
of stone pot. The thing literally comes out hissing, so don't go
sticking your fingers anywhere near it until it has cooled down... or
at least stopped making noise.

The absolute best part about
ordering the dolsot bibimbap (or anything, for that matter) is the
array of side dishes that come with it! Every entree comes with the
following eight sides:

Fermented soybean soup (doenjang):
Similar to Japanese miso soup, this dish is a warm and slightly briny
broth flavored with soy bean paste and garnished with green onion.

Seasoned cucumbers: These are crisp slices of cucumber, marinated and seasoned with chili paste.